Appetite (and iron-clad stomach) for success

The former Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson recalls a lively debate over the euro during which Helmut Kohl began to eat butter, several plates of it, until he calmed down | Illustration by Ron Coddington/MCT via Getty Images

The former Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson recalls a lively debate over the euro during which Helmut Kohl began to eat butter, several plates of it, until he calmed down | Illustration by Ron Coddington/MCT via Getty Images

BONN, Germany — Helmut Kohl’s surname means “cabbage” in German. The satirical magazine Titanic nicknamed him “Birne” in the 1980s due to the pear-like shape of his head, and the moniker stuck. So it isn’t surprising that the bon vivant was associated in the popular imagination with food, and especially with blithely excessive culinary indulgence. Eating was not only a delight for Kohl, however. It was also a way of establishing his regional identity and conducting politics.

Ask a German what Kohl liked to eat, and they will answer without hesitation: “Saumagen!” The dish is a specialty of Kohl’s native state, Rhineland-Palatinate, and seems the kind of food you would have to be raised on to love: a pig’s stomach is stuffed with well-spiced pork, carrots and potatoes, the whole is cooked in hot water, then sliced, pan-fried, and served with sauerkraut and local wine.

Popular lore holds that Saumagen originated as a rustic peasant dish, a way of using up leftovers from the pig, but other theories hold that it was a highlight of the fall butcher fest. It is a perfect union of high and low, and Kohl made a practice of serving it to visiting dignitaries.

Holding court in his “second living room,” the Deidesheimer Hof, an ur-typical German restaurant on the German Wine Route, Kohl had visiting politicians such as Margaret Thatcher, Boris Yeltsin, John Major, Václav Havel, Jacques Chirac and Mikhail Gorbachev dine on local specialties. Besides stuffed pig’s stomach, guests tried strudel made of blood sausage and liverwurst, liver dumplings, and steamed yeast rolls.

Helmut Kohl’s caricature of unbridled indulgence, monstrous in its proportions, was only part of the picture | Thierry Orban/Sygma via Getty Images

Yeltsin liked the meaty strudel so much that he called the chef, Manfred Schwarz, to the table and asked him for a copy of the recipe. He proposed to sign a decree naming the dish “strudel à la Boris Yeltsin,” to which Kohl laughed and pointed out that the decree would be invalid unless he signed it too.

At times, Kohl’s embrace of regional cuisine led to criticism. In the early 1990s, journalists portrayed Kohl as a provincial yokel, losing his head over fattening local dishes and failing to present an appropriate image of power in affairs of state. The literary critic Karl Heinz Bohrer was particularly brutal when he claimed that “Kohl represented the rule of the belly over the head.”

It is not hard to see how the chancellor could become a cartoon figure, given his preferred meal. The German expression “to have a Saumagen” means to have an iron-clad stomach. The city of Schifferstadt in the Rhineland-Palatinate established a “Saumagen” Order as part of its carnival festivities in 1992, and the decoration was unsurprisingly bestowed on Kohl in that first year. Saumagen is delicious, but a love for it does not lead to being taken seriously.

Kohl’s epicureanism led critics to associate him with outsized bodies. Bohrer once wrote that “Kohl’s body is the body of the Federal Republic,” imagining him as a giant mother standing in the kitchen, cutting slices of bread for her children. The poet Durs Grünbein compared Kohl to the Giant Rübezahl, a folkloric figure who turned turnips into people. Here was Kohl as a massive force of nature, frightfully transformative of the people around him.

The literary critic Karl Heinz Bohrer was particularly brutal when he claimed that “Kohl represented the rule of the belly over the head.”

And yet this caricature of unbridled indulgence, monstrous in its proportions, was only part of the picture. Kohl, whose older brother died in World War II, was 15 years old and stationed in a Hitler Youth pre-military training camp in Bavaria when Germany capitulated. As he later recalled in an interview with Stern magazine, he walked around 450 kilometers to his hometown of Ludwisghafen, stealing food on the way to survive.

At home, Kohl found starvation rations, and so he decided to learn agriculture. Germany was going to be a pastoral state according to the Morgenthau Plan, and farms at least had food to eat. Kohl managed a travel pass to the American zone and cared for cows and pigs on an estate near Würzburg until he figured out he was unlikely to have much of a future in farming. He returned home bearing a ham and a live goose.

One has the impression that Kohl rarely stayed hungry. The former Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson recalls a lively debate over the euro during which Kohl began to eat butter, several plates of it, until he calmed down. Viktor Belyaev, chef at the Kremlin for 30 years, describes an early morning visit from Kohl, who was kept on a strict diet by his wife Hannelore. The chancellor begged him for something tasty to eat, and Belyaev made him toast with sausages and bacon. Later, at the official breakfast, Kohl made a big show of abstaining from the hearty Russian breakfast.

Kohl used food for diplomatic ends, but sometimes personal pleasure trumped politics. In 1984, Margaret Thatcher traveled to St. Gilgen, Kohl’s preferred holiday spot, to meet with the chancellor. After one hour, Kohl abruptly called an end to their discussion, explaining that he had another urgent appointment. Shortly afterwards, Thatcher spotted Kohl happily eating cake in a local café. It’s a legendary story, but it has the flavor of truth.

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Pfälzer Saumagen: Stuffed pig’s stomach, in the style of the Rhineland-Palatinate

This is a relatively simple take on Saumagen, based on several recipes from the website Chefkoch.de

(For a handy, A4-sized, printable version of this recipe, click here.)

Soak the stomach in lukewarm water. Soak the bread rolls in water for 20 minutes, then squeeze them thoroughly. Finely chop the parsley. Cut the meat and potatoes into small cubes.

In a bowl, mix the bread, potatoes, chopped meat and ground veal together with the eggs and the spices. Mix well, until the meat cubes stick to everything else, and the mixture sticks to your hand.

Fill the stomach with the mixture, making sure not to stuff it too full. Bind the openings of the stomach with kitchen twine, and poke a few small holes in the stomach.

Put the stuffed stomach in a pot filled with enough water for it to float. Bring the water to 80 degrees Celsius (176 Fahrenheit) and let it soak at that temperature for three hours. Do not allow the water to boil. The filled stomach should reach an internal temperature of 72 degrees Celsius (162 F).

Take out the stomach and let it cool. Cut it into slices about an inch thick, and fry these in a pan with some fat and onions until they get a nice crust on both sides. Serve with sauerkraut and fried or mashed potatoes.

VARIATIONS

If you cannot find a stomach (even Germans have difficulty), you can try putting the filling into sausage casings or even into jars that are then cooked in the water or in the oven.

You can vary this recipe a great deal. Soak the bread in milk instead of water. Play with the spicing: include ginger, paprika, thyme, garlic, allspice, celery, or even spices such as cloves, coriander and cardamom. You can also use chestnuts or carrots instead of, or in addition to, the potatoes.

Irina A. Dumitrescu is junior professor in English medieval studies at the department for English, American and Celtic studies, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Bonn.